I am writing in response to the Nov. 27 letter to the editor from Cathryn Cushing regarding naming of the TriMet light-rail/walking bridge across the Willamette River. While I do support naming the bridge in honor of Abigail Scott Duniway and in recognition of her leadership for women's suffrage in the state of Oregon, I'm not moved by formally calling it "The Abigail Bridge."

The previous author was suggesting that by applying just Abigail's first name to the bridge, it would show respect to the woman and that it would differentiate her from her father and husband (and her brother I might add). I must disagree.

If I may, I'd like to remind the audience that in 1852, at the age of 18, Abigail Scott was a young woman and member of the Scott family. In that year her mother and father, along with Abigail and her eight siblings, came to the Oregon Territory from Illinois along the Oregon Trail. In those days, often it was only the driver of the wagon who got to ride in a seat. Everyone else, men, women and children, walked along the side of the wagons the whole trip. In those times it was not an easy journey, and along the trail in 1852, Abigail's mother and youngest sibling each passed away.

It is also my understanding (as passed down to me by my father, Abigail's grand nephew, that by the time Abigail and her brothers and sisters reached Oregon, many of them, Abigail included, no longer had shoes. Instead, they were wearing strips of cloth wrapped around what had been leather shoes when they had started.

Soon after reaching the Oregon Territory, Abigail married Charles Duniway and as was then, and is still today generally the custom, she took Mr. Duniway's last name as her own. However, as we know today, Abigail was not simply known as "Abigail." As she began her suffrage movement efforts, Abigail was always referred to as "Abigail Scott Duniway." Not just "Abigail Scott," the young woman who walked the Oregon trail, nor just "Abigail Duniway," the wife and mother of six children. She was always referred to as "Abigail Scott Duniway," thereby giving Abigail her own identity in her own right beyond being a young woman, a wife and a mother.

That's right, she was "Abigail Scott Duniway," the woman who was leading a movement to secure the right to vote for all women in the state of Oregon.

Therefore, I would encourage the TriMet committee to consider the formal name for the bridge to be the Abigail Scott Duniway Bridge. And then leave it to the public, should they wish, to casually shorten it to Abigail's Bridge, and let it serve as a reminder of the journey that all women in Oregon have made. Whether it was walking a long and dusty trail from Illinois out to the Oregon Territory or it was striving to bridge the gap for an equal right to a vote.

Harvey Scott III co-owns the Coleman-Scott House in Portland’s Irvington district and lives in Mill Creek, Wash.